• Client: Auckland City Council
• Year: 2010

The main contract was to renew the Orakei Basin Sluice Gates, and was awarded to Service Engineers Limited who contracted Coastline Construction Group Limited for construction work and Current Electrical for the electrical works. Brevini and Hambaker Adams were two of the main suppliers.

The scope of the contract was to design, fabricate, install and commission stainless steel penstocks with automatically actuated hydraulic rams and control systems.

Service Engineers Limited had overall design responsibility and brought together gates fabricated by Hambaker, hydraulics and power pack by Brevini, and electrical and control panel by Current Electrical. Coastline Construction built the maintenance accessway, which required building consent. The basin had to be kept full and flushed as part of the compliance needs of the resource consent for the project.

Project challenges involved designing temporary dams either side of the 80yr old gates which enabled access to replace with the new ones, as well as coordination of many variables such as train traffic, crane lifts, basin flushing cycles and tidal timing. The project also attracted welcomed attention from influencial surrounding interest groups such as the ski club and local residents.

Major hazards included working underneath the main railway corridor, tidal changes, moving water and difficult access. Trains needed to be stopped during crane lifts.

This was a successful project delivered well under the contracted budget and delivered on time without incident.